aircannonsinc Chapter 94 Young friend, why not join my Jade Void Sect?
Chapter 94 Young friend, why not join my Jade Void Sect?
The fierce wind tore the helicopter's roar to shreds.
The first squad landed, their military boots crunching over the millennia-old snow with a dull creak.
What stood before them was a colossal bronze gate, rigidly embedded in the cliff face.
On the hundred-meter-high gate, the reliefs of cloud patterns and mythical beasts exude a desolate, primordial atmosphere in the thin air. This is the entrance to "Kunlun Ruins".
"All personnel on high alert." Xiao Qianyu's voice rang out in the tactical channel, carrying her usual coldness. "Our ninth squad has scouted ahead; the area behind the door is no safe haven. Stay alert."
Zhao Leiguang cracked his neck, his bones popping. He patted the dark gold-gleaming heavy armor on his chest and grinned, "Don't worry, Captain. What do we care about demons and monsters? It's just a matter of a shield."
Lin Chuxue rubbed her hands together, exhaling a puff of white breath, her mischievous nature fully exposed: "At the threshold of an S-level secret realm, anything that drops there must be top-tier, right?"
Lu Yan walked at the back of the group, looking up at the totem on the bronze door. Li Tianshan's words of advice before his departure still echoed in his ears.
"The Taoist priest in that mural... Lu Yan, your Void Disc may very well hold the truth behind the disappearance of the Eastern pantheon. This time, we're not seeking battle merits, but only answers."
The answer? Through his combat suit, Lu Yan ran his fingertips along the disc in his storage space. Since its creation, it had been as lifeless as a piece of scrap metal.
The moment I stepped through the portal of light, the expected spatial tearing did not occur. Instead, it felt like stepping into warm water, with my body enveloped by a dense force that propelled me forward.
The next second, feet firmly on the ground.
Before your eyes lies a magnificent plaza paved with white jade. Twelve towering stone pillars rise from the ground, their surfaces adorned with the totems of the twelve zodiac animals, their imposing presence spreading silently. A strange, exotic fragrance floats in the air; a single breath is enough to dispel most of the fatigue from days of travel.
"The energy concentration is outrageous, even purer than an S-grade magic crystal vein." A faint light shimmered in Su Yunqing's palm. As a healer, she was most sensitive to energy.
"Spread out and be on guard." Xiao Qianyu pointed her spear diagonally.
Ten minutes passed, and not a single monster, not even a blade of grass, was seen. The only sound in the empty square was the whistling of the wind whistling through the stone pillars.
"That's strange. Where are the battlefield ruins mentioned in the Ninth Squad's report?" Zhao Leiguang looked around, carrying his giant shield.
Before he finished speaking, the stone pillar carved with "Tiger" at the edge suddenly underwent a strange change.
Without warning, two scarlet points suddenly appeared in the eyes of the stone tiger.
A dark shadow suddenly rose from behind the pillar, moving so fast that it left no afterimage, and headed straight for Zhao Leiguang at the front!
"Enemy attack!"
Zhao Lei reacted with lightning speed, slamming his giant shield into the ground, causing a wall of earth to rise up. This pneumatic shield, made of high-pressure energy, could withstand even the bombardment of main battle tanks.
But when the shadow collided with the shield, it didn't even make a muffled sound. Like a pool of living ink, it ignored both physical and energy defenses, directly piercing through the light wall and sticking firmly to Zhao Leiguang's breastplate.
"What the hell is that?!"
Zhao Leiguang felt as if he had been struck in the chest, the chilling air seeping into his bones through the gaps in his armor. The boiling energy within him instantly stalled, and most of his proud brute strength was drained away, causing him to stagger backward uncontrollably.
Only then did everyone see the attacker's full appearance.
It was a monster resembling a fierce tiger, devoid of fur and flesh, its body entirely composed of flowing, pitch-black shadows, its four claws treading on eerie green will-o'-the-wisps. Its pure red eyes were filled with deathly stillness.
"Focus fire!"
Xiao Qianyu shouted sharply.
Lin Chuxue's crimson magic orb, Wen Yue's explosive grenade, Shen Xinglin's lance thrust... a barrage of firepower capable of instantly vaporizing an A-level BOSS descended upon them.
However, all attacks vanished the moment they touched Black Tiger, like mud sinking into the sea, only causing a few ripples in the shadow before being completely swallowed up.
"Dual immunity, both physical and energy-based, or rather, absorption." Lu Yan, standing at the back, instantly saw through the mechanism.
Having landed a successful blow, the black tiger pushed off the ground with its four claws, transforming into a black streak as it pounced straight at Su Yunqing in the back row.
"Flash Strike!"
Xiao Qianyu vanished into thin air, precisely blocking the Black Tiger's path. The Crimson Lotus Goddess Spear shot out like a dragon, its tip wreathed in flames as it slammed towards the Black Tiger's head.
This time it didn't penetrate; the tip of the gun felt a sticky, gritty sensation as it pierced into some kind of flexible, gelatinous substance.
"roar--"
Black Tiger, in pain, let out a mournful roar that seemed otherworldly. The sound waves pierced their eardrums and penetrated their brains, causing everyone's vision to go black simultaneously. Taking advantage of this opening, Black Tiger violently swung its head, the force of which sent Xiao Qianyu and her gun flying.
The formation was instantly breached. This bizarre gatekeeper monster completely exceeded their common sense about combat. Their top-tier divine equipment was nothing but decoration in front of it.
"Get the hell out of my way!"
Zhao Leiguang steadied himself and launched a brutal charge, transforming himself into an out-of-control heavy truck as he recklessly crashed into Black Tiger.
Black Tiger neither dodged nor evaded, taking the impact head-on. Zhao Leiguang felt as if he had crashed into a slippery ball of cotton, the terrifying kinetic energy completely dissipated. The next second, Black Tiger opened its abyss-like maw and bit down on his shoulder armor.
A piercing corrosive sound rang out, and a fist-sized hole was forcibly melted into Zhao Leiguang's dark gold-grade heavy armor.
"Damn it! It has armor penetration and corrosion!" Zhao Leiguang's forehead veins bulged with pain.
The first squad, the most elite fighting force in China, actually suffered a setback at the very first monster they encountered upon entering.
The black tiger lowered its front paws to the ground, and ghostly green flames surged, poised to pounce again.
Just then, a lazy, aged voice drifted over from the end of the square.
"You beast, why haven't you returned to your place yet?"
The sound wasn't loud, but it drowned out the wind and the tiger's roar throughout the entire venue.
Everyone looked in the direction of the sound. At the end of the white jade steps, there was another person who had appeared at some point.
The newcomer wore a faded, worn-out Taoist robe, was thin, and had a whisk that was mostly worn out draped over his arm.
He squinted at the first team, looking at them as if they were a bunch of naughty kids who had trampled his vegetable garden.
Upon hearing this sound, the black tiger, whose fury was overwhelming, suddenly froze, its swirling black aura instantly freezing.
It turned its head stiffly, and in its lifeless, bloodshot eyes, a human-like fear was revealed.
The old Taoist priest didn't even glance at it, slowly pulled a crumpled yellow talisman from his wide sleeve, and casually tossed it towards the black tiger.
"Imperial edict."
The yellow talisman hovered in mid-air, spontaneously combusting without fire. Golden talismans materialized out of thin air, instantly stretching into a radiant golden chain.
It moved so fast that it couldn't be seen with the naked eye, and it tightly gripped the black tiger's body.
Black Tiger let out a desperate howl. Its flowing shadowy form was brutally compressed and crushed under the strangulation of the golden lock.
In the span of just three breaths, the monster that had been keeping the first squad in a panic was crushed into a black bead the size of a walnut.
pat.
The bead fell to the ground, rolled a long way, and then disappeared completely.
The square was so large you could hear a pin drop.
Zhao Leiguang stared wide-eyed, forgetting even the excruciating pain from the corrosion on his shoulder. Lin Chuxue's hand, which was forming a magic seal, froze in mid-air. Even Xiao Qianyu, whose face was usually as calm as still water, had white knuckles gripping her gun.
Is this over?
The old Taoist priest strolled over, kicked the black bead with the toe of his worn-out cloth shoe, bent down to pick it up, blew off the dust, and casually stuffed it into his sleeve pocket. His nonchalant manner was no different from picking up a pebble by the roadside.
After doing all that, he finally lifted his eyelids and glanced at the first squad. When his gaze swept over their dazzling, special-effects-laden Western divine costumes, his brows furrowed into a deep frown.
"Tsk, where did that strong muttony smell come from?"
The old Taoist priest pinched his nose, his face full of disgust.
"No wonder even the mountain-suppressing stone couldn't suppress the evil aura; it turns out a few children dressed in gaudy clothes have arrived."
"Senior." Xiao Qianyu decisively put away her spear, strode forward, and gave a flawless military salute. "The First Squad of the China National Guard is here to investigate the secret realm. We have no ill intentions."
"The Dragon Guards of the Nation, oh, a force in the mortal realm, I suppose." The old Taoist priest looked her up and down, then nodded slightly. "Hmm, her aptitude is passable."
The old Taoist priest completely ignored Xiao Qianyu's military salute.
His cloudy old eyes were half-open and half-closed, his gaze passing over the people who were on high alert, and fixed directly on Lu Yan, who had been silent all along.
This glance seemed ordinary, yet Lu Yan felt as if even the quietly buzzing void within his soul had been seen through.
"Chaos has returned, and those demons and monsters in the west are causing trouble again."
The old Taoist priest casually draped the bald whisk back over his arm, his tone revealing a nonchalant acceptance of life's vicissitudes. He looked at Lu Yan with a half-smile, "Young friend, do you think you can save yourself in this crumbling world by carrying this barbaric, stinking object? That's rather petty."
As soon as he finished speaking, the old Taoist priest's tattered sleeves billowed in the wind, and his originally hunched body seemed to instantly support this broken sky, with a vast and ancient starry pressure spreading out silently.
"Why not join my Jade Void Sect?"